KID SHIRT

Monday, February 21, 2005

GOODBYE, GONZO

Hunter S Thompson is dead. The King of Supersubjectivity checked out of his hotel without paying the bill. He sneaked down the fire-escape while no one was looking, clutching an old sports-bag with a broken zip that leaked a trail of stained boxer-shorts, used roach-ends, pill bottles, and brandy miniatures stolen from the hotel room's mini-bar. A pair of towels bearing the logo of a well-known hotel chain flap in the wind as he clatters down the rusty stairwell. The wind catches sheets of hotel stationary filled with hastily-scribbled notes detailing the Final Overthrow of All Earthly Governments, and sends them spiralling upwards on a sudden vortex of air.

Downstairs, somewhere round the back, Oscar Acosta, his attorney, is waiting for him in The Whale. "What fucking kept you, man?" Oscar laughs until he coughs, accidentally over-revving the car as Doctor Gonzo throws his bag in the rear seat and slides in beside him. "My fucking foot's gone to sleep..."

"Actually, I was balling your sister," says Duke, lighting his cigarette in a needlessly dramatic gesture. He narrows his mouth and blows a thin stream of smoke off towards a point on the horizon that only he can see. "What say we both get the fuck out of this loathsome little shithole, eh, my oafish, over-sized friend? Modern-day America has so very little to recommend it..."

"Heh. Now you're talking." Oscar puts The Whale into Drive. It lurches forward like a beached behemoth, coughing horribly as it drags itself onto dry land to die. "As your attorney I advise you take more acid..."

Somewhere over the desert, a pteradactyl honks as they slowly disappear into the shimmering haze of heat, dust and light that marks the borderlands of Forever.